Feed

A feed connected directly to the brain.  News, products, advertisements, messages constantly streaming in.  What would this do to us?  What would become of our minds, our relationships, our culture?  It is clear that the lives of the teens in Feed revolve entirely around this constant supply of information.  There are some things about them that I find extremely disturbing but I worry that the teens presented in the book are only a small exaggeration on what is already happening to us.

The characters in the book have to be constantly connected or their whole world seems to collapse.  They are entirely bored if they don't have the feed on and lots of other people around.  They use the feed to talk to people who are right next to them instead of just speaking to them.  They can access any information they want whenever they need to.

These uses of technology don't seem to be entirely different from our own.  The book is simply made more extreme by the fact that the characters are literally constantly connected.  But it seems that we too rarely spend time alone and are almost always connected in some way.  Sometimes I instant message people who are only across the hall simply because it is convenient. And it's easy enough for me to find the information I need on the Internet.

However, there are some bigger differences between us and the characters in Feed  that are even more troubling.  Everyone having constant access to information means that everyone is essentially on the same level.  If everyone has access to any information they wish whenever they wish does it mean that everyone is extremely intelligent or that intelligence is altogether irrelevant?  I would argue that intelligence is on the decline for the characters in the book.  It seems that the characters, completely dependent on their feeds, are less able to express their thoughts and communicate effectively.  They constantly search for words, shorten them or just omit them altogether.  Indeed, save for Violet, the characters don't even write.

Moreover, the constant information occupies so much of their mind that they seem to have trouble concentrating.  If they can't even think with a clear mind then of course they can't communicate or problem-solve properly.  Without ever getting a break from this incessant barrage they are unlikely to ever be able to critically think about anything.

The reality is Feed, while in some ways not so entirely different from our own, is certainly more troubling.  It will be interesting to see how the story plays out.  So far, it seems to be a cautionary tale about what our dependence on technology could lead to.